To rebarrel or not...?

G

gedenke

New member
I have an old Arisaka sporter chambered in 6.5x257, (some of you here have seen it) not a bubba-job, but not really worth too much either. The gun is decent and I like it. After some extensive work with various handloads, I've come to the conclusion that the barrel has expired. I can get 2-3" groups any given day and sometimes a little less. Once in a while the gun will shoot good, but not consistantly.

My smith will rebarrel for about $200, so, question is: Do I cough up the dough and rebarrel or leave the gun as-is and put the $200 plus another $200 into a new rifle?

For purpose of clarification, I'm not needing benchrest accuracy, this is a hunting rifle. I would just like it to shoot closer to 1-1.5" groups @100. Consistancy is the real goal.
 
gedenke, I too have a nice sporterized Arisaka 6.5X257, evidently done by an experienced gunsmith. Got it a few months ago. Rifling appears worn in mine, but actually the Japanese beveled rifling (polygonal?), so no sharp edges on them. However, my lands are heavily frosted/rough. I've tried different loads, but no luck improving my groups and I'd be happy to get 2" groups at 100 yards with mine. LOL, mine throws the bullets all over the target, with no real pattern to them. Looks like I have a bad scope, but after using 2 different scopes that work well on other rifles that is not the problem.

Read a post on another site recently by a guy with a 6.5 Arisaka which also shot unsatisfactory. He slugged his barrel and discovered it was not a 6.5 (.264). He discovered it was closer to the 6.5 Italian Carcano, which is .267 I think, not sure. Of course, he may have a Carcano rifle Japanese bought from Italians to use.

As for me, I've resigned myself to same decision you have made, need to rebarrel, but do I want to put any more money in my Arisaka. I use a retired machinest for my gunsmithing, something he has done on the side for about 40 years and is very capeable at it. His work is very reasonable in price, but he will not rebarrel an Arisaka. Just a quirk on his part, works on what he wants to. So, I'm considering buying another Marlin XL or XS rifle for around $300.

So, with the strenght of the Arisaka action and a barrel I was not worried about ruining, I tried an experiement with an engine crankcase additive that has teflon in it. Stuff looks like STP and it is called Greased Lightning and bottle of it costs me $6. I took a golf tee, dipped tip in the additive and then applied inside muzzle bore and then ran a cloth patch down bore to spread the stuff. Shot once, reswabbed additive in bore, shot again and etc. Repeated this for about 10 shots. My idea was for the teflon to become imbedded in the frosting of the lands, smoothing them out. Yea, crazy idea I know. But there is a rifle bore product called Gun Juice which I have read has teflon in it. Use same procedure with it as I used: apply, shoot, apply again and etc. Happened to be in an autoparts store one day, discovered the Greased Lightning product with teflon and said Why Not. Darn if this stupid idea didn't improve my Arisakas accuracy, groups tightened. Took rifle again to range to shoot. Shot about 6 rounds, not using the Greased Lightening. I fired two more rounds with the Greased Lightning in the bore. LOL, these two shots actually overlapped on my 100 yard target. I never had two consecutive bullets overlap each other with this rifle and while they were below the bullseye, they were both on the vertical center line of the bullseye. It was my last two 6.5X257 reloads, so don't know if it was just sure luck like I suspect. Two things I do know, bore is darker and it is easier to clean after the Greased Lightning.
 
Last edited:
IMO, $200 to rebarrel is a good deal, a chrome-moly Adams & Bennett barrel from Midway is $80. If you like the rifle and action, rebarrel, chamber for whatever makes your heart glad, then go and shoot it. If you can't quite see yourself toting an Arisaka around the woods, go buy a different rifle and park the Arisaka. There are a lot of good rifles looking for good homes.
 
Petah, a very good piece of advice, but I failed to mention that I already have that exact same gun in .270. Love it by the way. I was thinking Howa if I decide to go new.

Scorch, I believe that's the barrel my smith buys, and as for toting the Arisaka, I have (an do). It's a sporter and it's not that bad. A little heavy, but nothing I can't stand to carry.

Huff, sounds like an interesting concept, but I'm hesitant to believe in a "cure in a bottle".
 
A couple thoughts came to mind reading your post. Have you really cleaned it recently? I don't mean your average, "after going shooting" cleaning, but a thorough copper removal cleaning? The bedding may be a bit loose, or the muzzle may be worn or nicked also, all simple things to deal with.

I've had a couple rifles that shot erratically (or horribly, depeding how you want to state it), and were vastly improved with a very thorough, several day copper removal cleaning regimen. The bore may be just rough enough that it would benefit from a lapping, which would keep copper fouling down.
 
Oddly enough, the gun actually shoots slightly better when I DON'T clean it. And the bore? Let's just say it's very pitted. I'd almost go as far as calling it a sewer pipe....so, pretty sure there's no saving it.

All the same, though, I'd listen to your recommendations for a
a thorough copper removal cleaning
Click to expand...
. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at keeping my boom sticks clean, but who know's, maybe I'm not doing it good enough?
 
Firelapping and recrowning could help? Slug the muzzle to be sure it wasn't widened by use of a cleaning rod from that end? If so, nothing short of cutting the muzzle back to remove the wide place and recrowning is likely to give satisfactory accuracy. Pitting doesn't always affect accuracy badly if there isn't a pit that corrupts the muzzle profile itself, but it can encourage fouling.

I don't recommend Teflon. There were some other products for putting Teflon in a barrel back in the early 90's, but Teflon's properties apparently don't remain consistent as the barrel heats up, so match shooters found it could deteriorate their accuracy and stopped doing it. Gun Juice has a little of some unspecified fluoropolymer in it, but I can't tell how much? You can see it settle on the bottom of a bottle, but it's not a heavy concentration. I think you are better off with a product that isn't much affected by temperature. Moly Fusion for example could reduce fouling.
 
Considering a third option here: I could sell the gun and reloading dies, get as much as possible for it, and take that money plus the $200 that would've been spent on re-barreling and purchase a new rifle.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top